Hawaiian Name Finder

town · Oʻahu

Kāneʻohe

bamboo man

kah-neh-OH-heh

A windward town whose name comes from an insult.

Bamboo man

Kāne is a man or husband and ʻohe is bamboo. The name is traditionally explained by a story in which a woman compared her husband's cruelty to the cutting edge of a bamboo knife — bamboo splits to an edge sharp enough to use as a blade.

Place names recording a specific quarrel or incident are common in Hawaiian. The landscape was annotated with what happened in it.

The bay

Kāneʻohe Bay is the largest sheltered body of water in the main islands, protected by a barrier reef nearly eight miles long. It held a dense system of loko iʻa, walled fishponds, several of which are being restored and are again producing fish.